The bigonjapan.com Year-End Zeitgeist 2008

Every year the words and phrases that are most searched for by internet users around the world are published in Google’s Year-End Zeitgeist. As the name suggests, the report is a snapshot of where the world’s curiosity and interests currently lie, and as such offers a fascinating insight into global internet usage and the national psyche of the countries that are also listed individually.

Thanks to Google’s awesome Google Analytics software I have installed on Big on Japan, I too can take a peak at what internet users around the world are searching for and how they arrived at my site. And as with Google’s report, the bigonjapan.com year-end zeitgeist indicates the popularity of a number of topics, albeit generally restricted to ones relating to Japan. The top 10 for 2008 follows, with last year’s position in brackets:

1.(6) big in japan
Google searches only acknowledge the most important words used in search terms and ignore less significant ones like ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘and’ and ‘of’: google big on japan and big in japan-related sites take the top 6 search results, with bigonjapan.com 7th. Search for big in japan and Big On Japan turns up in 10th place.

2.(9) 外国の文化 (foreign countries’ culture)
Shows how interested Japanese people are in ‘the outside world’. The jump up 7 places is a mystery though, since my initial plans for Big On Japan to be a bilingual blog have been derailed and I now no longer post any Japanese-language content…

3.(-) common japanese expressions
Shows how many English speakers are learning, or have an interest in, Japanese language. What’s surprising about this is that I only posted the intro to Most Common Japanese Expressions in June, yet it’s already one of Big On Japan’s most popular search terms.

4.(1) bigonjapan
Indicates that a lot of users are coming back to Big On Japan, and they’re using Google to find the website again.

5.(4) tsuruhashi osaka
Shows a surprising amount of interest in Osaka’s Korea Town for the second year in a row.

6.(2) クレクレタコラ (Gimme Gimme Octopus)
Reflects how much popularity this insane 70s kids’ TV show has, and reminds me that I should really write a magazine article about it this year.

7. (-) japanese expressions
See #3 above

8.(12) big on japan
See #4 above

9.(90) teaching english in japan
Like #2, this is mystifying, only moreso. I don’t think I really posted anything about teaching English in Japan in 2008, but the search term has jumped 88 places. Must be something to do with the English teaching websites in my blogroll I suppose.

10.(-) turbo slang
Could relate to the number of ‘revheads’ using Google to top up their Top Gear knowledge, or the number of British pissheads looking for more information about their favourite industrial strength drink of choice. Your guess is as good as mine.

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